Lugovoi rules out return to UK

The prime suspect in the poisoning of the former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko said yesterday that he would never return to the UK to face trial as the case against him is politically motivated.

Speaking via a video link in Moscow, Andrei Lugovoi told journalists in London that MI6 had been involved in murder of Litvinenko in London last year. He added that detectives should focus their attention on the London-based Russian exile Boris Berezovsky.

"It is a politicised case," said Mr Lugovoi said during an hour-long question and answer session. "From the start politics was a big part, special forces were involved and security forces were involved ... I am not going there no, no, and once again no."

Litvinenko, a former officer of the Russian FSB, a successor to the KGB, sought asylum after accusing his colleagues of plotting the murder of Mr Berezovsky and took British citizenship last year. He was poisoned with polonium-210, a radioactive isotope, after meeting Mr Lugovoi at a London hotel in November 2006 and died three weeks later.

In May the Crown Prosecution Service said there was enough evidence to charge Mr Lugovoi with murder after polonium was found at restaurants, hotels and aircraft that they said linked him to the poisoning.

Mr Lugovoi said: "The traces ... were found 30 days after I left London. One explanation is that the polonium was intentionally put in these places after the death of Litvinenko."